What Does Jeremiah 11:8 Mean?
But they did not hear and respond, nor bend their ear, but each one walked in the stiffness of their evil heart. So I bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not do them.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not.THE KEY
The word behind “imagination” also carries stubbornness, showing a fixed heart becoming the path a person walks.
THE MEANING
When you do not hear and respond, the heart’s fixed desire becomes the direction you walk. The covenant’s words meet you now; what is left undone does not disappear, but arrives as consequence. Here, “imagination” carries the sense of stubbornness: a will held to its own course.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that refusal is neutral or private: the closed ear joins the heart to a path, and the covenant’s consequences still arrive.
THE ROOT
שְׁרִירוּת
sherirut
GROWS FROM
שרר
To be firm or stubborn; the noun carries the sense of obstinacy.
“stiffness” in this verse is sherirut. The word rendered “imagination” names a will fixed in its own course, not merely the faculty that forms pictures. The heart’s inward rigidity becomes the ground of the outward walk.
ALSO GROWS
sharir: Firm, strong
שָׁרִיר
This related form gives the word a sense of firmness that, in the verse, has become stubbornness.
sherirut: Stubbornness, obstinacy
שְׁרִירוּת
This is the form in the verse, describing a fixed disposition that shapes the person’s path.
שָׁמְעוּ
shāmeʿû
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, listen, heed, and respond.
“did not hear and respond” in this verse is shāmeʿû. The verb translated “obeyed” is built on hearing and response. The next phrase also speaks of the ear, making the refusal a failure to receive the words and answer them.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed
שָׁמַע
This verb holds hearing and responsive attention together, as the verse’s refusal to obey makes plain.
shemuʿah: Report, news; what is heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun shows hearing as something received, giving the verse’s closed ear the sense of refusing the message itself.
וַיֵּלְכוּ
wayyeleḵu
GROWS FROM
הלך
To go, walk, or proceed along a course.
The verse moves from what the heart holds to how the person walks. “Walked” can name a lived direction, so the refusal of hearing takes visible form in the path followed.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: Go, walk
הָלַךְ
The basic verb makes the people’s chosen direction an ongoing movement through life.
hithalekh: Walk about, move along
הִתְהַלֵּךְ
This related form emphasizes a course of walking, echoing how a fixed heart shapes a person’s way.
THE PATTERN
A word received reaches toward action; when hearing is refused, the heart’s chosen direction becomes visible in its walk.
But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.For not the hearers of instruction are aligned before God, but the makers of instruction will be aligned.THE THREAD
But they did not hear and respond, nor bend their ear, but walked in their plans and in the stiffness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.The same roots recur: שמע (shamaʿ, hear and respond), נטה (natah, stretch or incline), and הלך (halakh, walk). The added phrase “backward, and not forward” makes the direction of that closed sequence unmistakable.
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